Fan movies.

Things I learned from fan-movies:

The actors are either 1) middleaged and overweight or 2) scrawny teenage nerds. I know that modern media conditioning skewers expectation. You know that in any well-funded production, the actors are generally pretty and handsome. People who take care of their bodies because those bodies are an undeniable part of their career.

You as a watcher are more prepared to take a bullshit technical dialogue for face-value when it's delivered by Michelle Rodriquez (Even though her career sees her doing stupid in Machette movies now.) than if that same technical dialogue is lisped up by an average obese person from Backwater, USA.

Is it fair though?

I've been watching the offerings from Hidden Frontier with some interest. There is some amazing acting going on at times. I'm impressed by the Vulcan ensign S'Tal, who turned her wooden-stick acting into something Leonard Nimoy would envy. The Doctor from the Oddisy, who's also Section31. I suspect that he has had some formal training, or is just talented enough to be believable in his role. The Andarian pirate Se'Vak was a menacing bastard, and his stalking of Chief-engineer Leffler was terrifyingly awesome.

So, acting is every bit as good as you can expect when you have a green screen and friends enough who want to embarrass themselves wearing a Starfleet top on normal blue jeans. Hidden Frontier can also boast a talented writing-staff. But many of the cast are obese to the point of self-endangerment and devoid of acting-talent. John Candy is obese, but that man can act, demanding the camera and keeping the focus on his actions rather than on his frame. Just ask yourself after a John Candy movie... did you see his weigth, or did you see his antics. I bet it's the latter every time.

The other thing is that the actors that are older all gave themselves absurd starfleet ranks. The amount of captains and higher running around micromanaging things (Not to mention commanders behaving like captains) are just too many to be realistic. Another thing that irks me in the series is the insane amount of Commodores.

A Commodore can be two things, but each is related to inability to join the Admiralty. It's a career-ending rank in the navy more or less (still honorable, mind you.) and a stop-cap in the merchant-navy (civilians who captain a merchant-ship that's being employed by the navy typically become commodores.). In the navy proper, a commodore deserves a spot on the admiralty, but can't enter the admiralty due to several considerations: It's peacetime and there are less fleets than that there are admirals, coupled with the fact that all rear-admiral positions are being held. Captains who bork their command in such a way that cashiering is uncalled for, yet can't retain their captaincy become commodores in a posting where they can't do much harm. In wartime, commodores are not generated by the navy proper (As discussed, those are typically merchant-captains who gain the rank as an honor-acknowledgement for their service in wartime.) as it is more prudent to keep high-performing officers in their positions for as long as possible.

In the fanseries, the Federation is essentially at war with the Grey, the Tholians, the Breen, the Solians and the Cardassians. Yet, at Deepspace 12, an admiral and no less than three commodores are running around, which is very much an impossibility. Apart from that, the amount of captains is staggering and not in anyway related to the amount of starships present at anytime. From that insane pool of captains, a handful are running the show, showing remarkable contempt for the commanding admiral. Those captains frequently make career-ending decisions, up to ignoring the Prime Directive and the Temporal Prime Directive (Which was heavily ammended after captain Janeway threw out every Federation Oath she ever took to genocide the Borg.).

Yet, Hidden Frontier is compelling storywise. It's not a flimsy star trek fanfic resulting in female starship captains getting raped by cardassian spies or anything. In fact, the show is remarkably wholesome. Towards the more recent episodes though, the focus lingers on the homosexual relationship between Cory Aster and Ro Nevin and that's where the series starts to detoriate into basic fanfic for the most part. At first, the Federation tenets of equality in all things holds up, but eventually, the constant pining of Cory Aster after Ro Nevin starts to grate on the nerves. Nevin redeems himself in my eyes as he ends up lightyears away from home, forced to take on a Tal Shiar Romulan first officer and a crew that questions his ability to lead. (Sadly though, the romulan soon ends up in a lesbian relationship with the security officer.) The Oddisy storyline is easily the best, because of the character-growth of Ro Nevin.

Another storyline I enjoyed were the Helena Chronicles. The crew of the Helena goes rogue in a bid to rescue the galaxy from the Omega molecule. Omega is a source of endless power, but so unstable that a single Omega molecule can destroy starsystems. The Federation experiments with it, jealously guarding it from all the major players. The dream is too good to be true, but the Federation has opened Pandora's box. The crew of the Helena tries to close the lid.

Anyway, if you're a trekkie, direct your browser to http://www.hiddenfrontier.com/ and watch a few shows. Remember that some things can't be unseen though. Be prepared. The site is still going strong, though recently they've taken to audio-shows. The early video-shows are of woeful quality, but it gets better as you venture into the more recent shows.